I've talked in the past about piracy, bringing up the point that though those against piracy on the internet are right, their methods of enforcement quickly turn public opinions against them. No greater case can be listed than Viacom's nearly two billion dollar lawsuit against Google in regards to their property YouTube. The ruling has finally come, and the Judge stated that YouTube was doing everything in it's power to remove copyrighted material from it's site, IE someone flags a video as copyrighted and YouTube removes it. Therefore YouTube was acting in accordance to all laws regarding Internet Media. Viacom states openly that they're sure they will win in appeal, and continues it's effort in making itself the enemy of this situation.
Now this is a little different from the last article I did on Piracy, where the individual person was stealing and distributing media, now we have a middle man, a company, YouTube. Viacom's case is that YouTube's methods of removing material from their site is inadequate and therefore the mega-giant that is Viacom is losing money from people watching their shows on the site. They go on to point out that YouTube actually encourages the posting of copyrighted material and are making money off of it. As ludicrous as this is, it becomes even sillier when the fact that Viacom itself has posted it's own material on the site to spark a viral interest in the material, and have asked YouTube to put it back up when it was taken down...
The simple fact is that YouTube has a EULA, an End-User License Agreement, which states quite clearly that the posting of videos that you do not exclusively own without permission is prohibited. When someone ignores this, the video can then be flagged by any user, and will then be viewed by a moderator, and removed if the video goes against the User Agreement. Case closed. YouTube has always made it clear that videos you do not have permission to show are not allowed, and it is the individual users that ignore this agreement that cause the problem, and with a user base numbering in the thousands of people who use YouTube regularly, not even mentioning the casual users, it creates a pile that can be difficult to manage.
What strikes me is Viacom's assertion that YouTube makes it's money off this material. This is a lie, and one I cannot fathom anyone buying. The core premise of YouTube is the ability to share an individual's videos with the world, and that's generally how it's used. From funny accident videos to vloggers, the people who do actually bring most of YouTube's money, the site is about self expression for anyone and everyone.
Right now I'm looking at YouTube's front page and you know what I see? In the Featured Videos I see Tiny Bubbles; a bearded man talking to his camera about explosions, Understanding GIRLS!!!; a video of an Asian girl talking about, well, women. In the 'Videos being watched now' section I see Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Gameplay Footage posted by IGN, and Ken's Dating Tips, a comedy skit promoting Toy Story 3 posted by Pixar. Wait a minute, you mean legitimate companies are using YouTube to distribute their content so they can make money?
This is where Viacom should be, they should be using YouTube, not trying to milk it for two billion dollars. The simple and instant access to media is what makes sites like YouTube so popular, people can instantly find something they want to watch. Whether it's Movie Trailers posted by the Studios, reports directly from the floors of E3 posted by G4, or news reports put up by CNN. YouTube is not hurting media distribution, it's giving it a new tool to provide us entertainment on our schedule, and putting it in a place we're all gonna be able to find it. Here we have yet again a company that doesn't want to see the world of technology evolve, they just want to keep everything the way it was...
Knock it off Viacom, and upload a video.
No comments:
Post a Comment